The Ugly Tragedy of Tariffs

No nation was ever ruined by free trade. ~ Benjamin Franklin 

The US-China trade war is continuing and will get much worse on Tuesday. First initiated during President Trump’s initial term, US tariffs on specific imported Chinese products ranged from 10% to 50%. As of February 4, tariffs on all Chinese imports will be 10% above any existing tariffs. The president didn’t forget the other 2 nations that we trade most with. He also increased US tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports to a stunning 25%. Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s chief diplomat, correctly labeled them saying, “There are no winners in trade wars.” 

The president’s Order contains a clause that will increase US tariffs if Canada, China, or Mexico retaliate. All three governments already have promised to answer Mr. Trump’s higher levies with their own retaliatory tariffs on US exports including Florida orange juice, Tennessee whiskey, Kentucky peanut butter as well as other goods. 

On October 15, 2024 Donald Trump stated that of the 470,000 entries in Webster’s English Dictionary, “Tariff is the most beautiful word in the dictionary.” Now as president again, he’s attempting to beautify America. His new tariffs will not be beautiful; they will be ugly, especially for consumers. 

Tariffs have a long history of creating revenue for public potentates. The world’s first tariffs of record were established by English King Henry VII in 1489. 

Henry VII (1457-1509)   Wikipedia

Three (3) centuries later, the US Tariff Act of 1789 was promptly enacted by the newly-created US Congress. This law allowed only the US government to levy uniform tariffs, no state can create tariffs. Tariffs remained the primary source (up to 90%) of US federal revenue for well over a century. Tariff revenues now provide about 2% of federal revenues. Before the president’s January 31 tariff proclamation, the average US tariff across all products was 2.77%. 

Today the US has increased tariffs on all imported Chinese goods. Such an escalation will raise prices for companies and consumers likely accelerating domestic inflation. Higher US tariffs have incited additional retaliation from Canada, China and Mexico, further ratcheting up a trade war that has already exacted economic harm for each country. 

Hundreds of products’ prices were subsequently increased by President Trump’s first Chinese tariffs started in May 2018. They were imposed on $200 billion (B) of Chinese imported goods that represents 40% of Chinese imports to the US. The list of tariffed Chinese items included everything from “frozen retail cuts of meat of swine” all the way to “furniture of plastics.” China predictably retaliated with new tariffs on roughly $60B US exports into China, that represented 46% of 2017 US exports to China. Although China has certainly stretched WTO rules to its advantage, it’s doubtful that the president’s current hardball tactics of raising tariffs will be worth the pain and cost that will harm US exporters and consumers. 

A prominent paradox of the president’s tariff increases is his nascent administration’s justification for the new tariffs’ anticipated loftier tax revenues. Higher tariff revenues will serve as a means of justifying the president’s extension of sizeable tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. 

The US imports more goods from China than any other nation in the world. In 2022, China accounted for 16.5% of all US imported goods. This fact is reflected in the sizeable, continuing trade deficits the US has with China, $279.4B in 2023. China’s dramatic economic growth over the past decades has been principally export driven. It is the leading exporter of goods in the world, ahead of the US. China’s exports of goods represent a hefty 18.6% of its GDP. In 2023, total US goods’ and services’ exports represented 11% of our GDP. 

In this assessment of our trade conflict with China, I focus specifically on US farmers who have endured heavy and direct economic cross-fire from the president’s trade war. More than 20% of US agricultural exports face reciprocal tariffs from China and other countries. 

I examine an incongruous pair of agricultural products, soybeans and lobsters that have been subject to Chinese tariffs. Before the president initiated his new tariffs, the US exported to China $21.6B of soybeans and $128.5 million worth of live lobsters. I will soon dive into marine crustaceans, but let’s first consider the humble soybean. 

Soybeans.  Soybean plants are widely grown for their edible bean. US farmland is awash with soybeans. They are now planted on 86 million acres of American farmland, more than any other crop. Thus, soybeans are very BIG agriculture in the US. They are our nation’s single largest agricultural export; almost double that of corn. This is one reason why China imposed a retaliatory 25% tariff on US soybean exports. Another reason is based on where soybeans are grown – in bright red, Trumpian mid-western states. In addition to being the source of all things in the tofu universe, soybeans are widely used in animal (especially pig) feedstocks, and as an ingredient for biodiesel fuel and astoundingly even crayons. Fermented soy foods include soy sauce. 

About 60% of US soybeans are exported. The Chinese market dominates US soybean exports. However, the Chinese tariffs on US soybeans have transformed that situation. China retaliated in 2018-19, with tariffs on US soybeans entering China which caused US exports to plunge by 98% into the country. 

The Chinese imported only $15.1B of US soybeans in 2023. They’ve been buying more Brazilian and Argentinian soybeans instead. Also distressing for US soybean growers is that 2024 year-end prices per bushel have collapsed to August 2020 soybean prices. The USDA/ERS expects 2024 net farm income (a measure of farm profits) to drop by 1.1%. “It’s a big concern,” said David Williams, a Michigan soybean farmer. The trade conflict, which President Trump initiated with steel and aluminum tariffs in 2018, has spread far afield. 

US soybean farmers have taken it in the beans with respect to their livelihoods due to Trump’s tariffs. These reliably Republican farmers notably complained to the Trump administration about the first Chinese punitive tariffs. The US government responded to these grievances by providing $3.6B in unplanned, taxpayer-paid fiscal assistance to soybean farmers to offset their financial distress caused by price and income drops. 

Lobsters.  Lobsters are large marine crustaceans. North Atlantic lobsters are found off the ocean coasts of New England and Canada. The largest lobster ever caught weighed 44 lb. They are sold and shipped as living animals. The biggest producer and exporter of American lobsters is the state of Maine. Lobster is an acquired taste for some, but they’re eaten by increasing numbers of consumers. It is a staple in North American seafood markets and is featured on many restaurants’ menus. 

For New England and especially Maine, lobsters have long been a fragile business. In 2023, Maine’s 4,800 lobster fishermen (there are very few women who commercially catch lobsters) “landed” 93.1 million (M) pounds of live lobster; that’s just 58% of 2016’s catch and the lowest since 2009. The lobster industry has often experienced significant ups and downs. In 2019, US lobster exports to China dropped more than 40% due to China’s retaliatory tariffs and stringent inspections. But in 2023, the US exported $182M worth of live lobsters to China, after the Chinese eliminated both their tough Covid-related inspections for imported food and some of the punitive, retaliatory tariffs that eliminated virtually all US lobster exports to China during several prior years. 

    Mark Barlow is the owner of Island Seafood, a large business that ships live Maine lobsters around the world. Barlow mentioned that as soon as China slapped its 25% tariff on US lobster exports, he told his sales team, “China’s dead.” His Chinese customers confirmed his expectation. “I don’t think there is [a] way to import US lobster,” one Chinese buyer stated. Barlow confirmed the Chinese tariff was a significant blow for Maine. As he put it, “The orangutan in Washington woke up from a nap and decided to put tariffs on China, and then Chinese stopped buying [Maine lobster] immediately. We’re getting absolutely slaughtered.” Maine’s drop in lobster sales became Canada’s bounty. Instead of buying Maine lobsters, the Chinese purchased Canadian ones. Trumpian tariffs threw US lobstermen overboard. 

Although it's unlikely, introducing stronger US tariffs on hundreds of imported goods might eventually benefit some US manufacturers who are not subject to the tariffs. But Maine lobstermen and Minnesota soybean farmers will suffer again from their lobster losses and soybean sorrows. Their travails will coincide with millions of US consumers who will be paying extra for imported goods like vegetables, petroleum, automobiles and medical drugs. Mexican avocados will become pricier, and Trump’s happier, go figure. 

One estimate of the increased costs we will face because of these tariffs is at least $1,170 per household. The president’s provocative tariff policy – mimicking President William ("I am a tariff man.") McKinley’s failed policy preferences – does not appear to be a winning economic strategy, even if he blames it on DEI programs. 

FANTASYLAND OR FRONTIERLAND

I was happiest between the waves. ~ Gertrude Ederle 

Have you ever spent holiday time at a Disney theme park? I expect so. Disney’s two US theme parks, Disneyland in California and Disneyworld in Florida, are the most-visited vacation resorts in the world. Last year, 76.9 million folks attended one of these parks. That’s close to twice the total number of people living in California, the nation’s most populous state. When I first visited Disneyland in 1962 on a family vacation as a teenager I was thoroughly captivated, especially by Fantasyland and Frontierland. Tomorrowland wasn’t far behind.

Disneyland opened in 1955 as the Happiest Place on Earth. It pioneered being an all-encompassing family resort where both kids and their parents have enjoyed its four created “lands,” Fantasyland, Frontierland, Tomorrowland and Adventureland. Customers have happily made 726 billion visits to Disneyland since it opened. Disneyworld opened in 1971 and features two water parks and four theme parks, including EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) and its spherical Spaceship Earth exhibit. When we visited, EPCOT was my favorite. Disneyworld has three times the number of annual visitors of Disneyland.

For a while there have been some new visitors to Fantasyland and Frontierland who are seeking their own happiest place on Earth. These folks’ hoped-for happiest place isn’t on Disney’s iconic Mainstreet USA in California or in Florida. It’s at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

These visitors are the aspiring candidates for the 2020 Presidential election, that’s still in the distant future. At the moment there are 7 Dems out of the 19 remaining who RealClearPolitics shows as having average poll numbers exceeding a measly 2%. Several of these “leading” Dems’ rank very high on my Fantasyland Indicator – Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang.

My Fantasyland Indicator heuristically accounts for each candidate’s approach to solving their signature issue(s). The higher a candidate’s Fantasyland Indicator is, the lower I believe is the candidate’s likelihood of passing real, effective policies – based on those they’re promoting as a candidate – implemented across the US, not just in Fantasyland. The indicator’s maximum value is 10.

I recognize that reality – an opposite of fantasy – by itself has hardly ever won an election. Politicians must instill hope, belief, trust and aspirations through their campaigns and programs in order to win. One of candidate Barack Obama’s successful slogans was "Change We Can Believe In." I did believe in his wished-for changes; some of which like the ACA actually became the law of the land. As a voter I seek candidates whose proposed policies can, if implemented, offer improvements to our lives. These policies need some realistic foundation and some likelihood of political and economic success, not a utopian ideal that sounds fantastic but isn't practically achievable.

I also recognize that my need for some real, pragmatic possibility for these candidates’ proposed plans doesn’t square with many primary voters. Oh well. But to not have some measure of reasonableness simply allows the candidate’s policies and plans to become empty verbal bait designed to catch targeted segments of voters. Vote for me because I’ll offer you 100% student-debt forgiveness, “free” healthcare and a “green” or a “great” America whether or not I can actually make it happen as president. The higher a candidate’s Fantasyland Indicator, the less likely I think her or his stated policies can actually become the law of our land.

Bernie Sanders.  Sen. Sanders’ signature issues – health care, inequality and college tuition – will be remedied by his Democratic Socialist, revolutionary policies that will significantly change both the structure and performance of our entire economy. His revolution appeals to people other than me. Ironically, given that Bernie suffered a mild heart attack last week, that he announced belatedly, people now may be more concerned about his health and stamina rather than his single-payer Medicare for All (M4A) plan.

As I’ve mentioned here, important parts of his M4A plan will disturb large numbers of already-insured folks, including over half of people under 65 years old (158 million) who are insured through their employers. That doesn’t bother Bernie. But at the least, creating the required new and increased taxes to fund M4A and devolving the nation’s existing healthcare system will be highly contentious and disliked. The US healthcare system employs almost 17 million people – roughly 1 in 10 US workers. Under Bernie’s M4A many of them will be dislocated and looking for new work. It is the rare citizen who gladly pays more taxes, especially new ones, or enjoys having to find another job. His free college tuition plan, like Elizabeth’s, and his total student debt forgiveness plan could offer benefits to one of his important constituencies, young people, but also will increase some folks’ taxes (guess who). They also will increase the non-tuition costs for public colleges to successfully provide ever-more entering students with an A.A. or B.A. My Fantasyland Indicator for Bernie is 9.8.

Elizabeth Warren.  Senator Warren’s signature issues include income and opportunity inequality. Her “I have a plan” candidacy includes 45 different plans listed at her website, but curiously not one for comprehensive healthcare. Her wealth tax, which she initiated before Bernie’s version, would provide some funding for several of her plans, including student debt annulment, free college, universal child care, the opioid crisis and green manufacturing.

Virtually any Dem candidate that’s to the left of Attila the Hun has subscribed either wholly or partially to her “2₵” wealth tax. It’s become a de rigueur keystone of most progressives’ funding plans. Although it’s a reasonable idea for effecting wealth redistribution, it will create several basic challenges including a Constitutional one, an enforcement one, a compliance one and a capital flight one. No matter. She has consistently staked out plans and policies that would face a host of practical issues if she succeeds in winning the White House. The breadth of her plans impressively exceeds even Bernie's. 

Passage of her plans (or of any other successful Dem candidate) would require the Dems in November 2020 to produce a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate as well as maintain their control of the House.   

Several of Elizabeth’s plans could have difficulty convincing moderates and others that they don’t reside just in Fantasyland perhaps even with middle-class tax increases she refuses to ponder. Such plans include her $150 billion (B) per year plan to expand Social Security benefits – an immediate $200 boost in monthly benefits for each of the 64M Social Security recipients. Social Security’s finances are already shaky. Last year the negative cash flow for Social Security’s retirement and disability programs was $80B. Would the FICA tax need to increase to help pay for her plan? Perhaps. Another of her plans would cost at least $1.25B/year to offer free-tuition for public colleges, like Bernie’s, and cancel most student debt. Her education plan contains a fair amount of fiscal caprice, as does her $100B program to resolve the opioid epidemic.

Her climate plan, which is adopted in large part from Jay Inslee’s plan, includes quite imaginative timescales and costs. Gov. Inslee dropped out of the race in August.

Sen. Warren wants to eliminate planet-warming emissions from power plants, vehicles and buildings by 2030, that’s only nine years after she hopes to start living in the White House. Her goal is praiseworthy, her timing is Fantasyland. Her plan would shut down each of the 219 operating coal-fired power plants that account for 30.1% of US electricity generated. The plan also seeks to achieve zero emissions from passenger vehicles and medium-duty trucks and buses by 2030. In 2018, zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) represented just 1.9% of US vehicle sales. ZEV percentages now are even lower for trucks and buses. Getting to zero emissions in less than a decade is Fantasyland.

Do Elizabeth’s plans contain laudable objectives? Yes, in most cases; but they’re not practically achievable in her proposed timeframes or costs. My Fantasyland Indicator for Elizabeth is 9.5.

Andrew Yang.  Andrew Yang’s tour-de-force policy is his Universal Basic Income (UBI) plan, a favorite of progressives and even a few conservative movers and shakers. It is the central focus of his campaign. Like Donald Trump before he became #45, Mr. Yang has no prior government experience. His UBI plan would provide $1,000/mo. for every citizen older than 18 years. Their “freedom dividend,” as Andrew calls these unconditional payments, regardless of income or employment status. Andrew’s program, unlike all others, would truly be universal, with everyone covered. All other UBI pilots to date have been offered only to low-income folks.  

Andrew’s national program would be funded by the federal government by creating a 10% national value-added tax, much like a sales tax. Using our current population and the number of people over 18, my and others’ estimates for his UBI come to around $3 trillion per year. That’s a large heap of money.[1] In fiscal year 2018 the Federal government spent $4.1 trillion. If enacted, Andrew’s UBI would increase federal spending by a massive 73% in one fell swoop, although he says that some existing welfare plan payments could be “consolidated” with the UBI payments. Such an increase in government spending would push the US up to levels seen in France and Scandinavian social democracies. This is fiscal Fantasyland.

A UBI plan’s costs have always been a substantial impediment to implementation. One of the largest UBI projects was undertaken in Finland. In 2017, the Finnish government created and tested the program, giving 560 Euros (~$616) to 2,000 unemployed Finnish citizens per month, with no requirement to find a paying job. By 2019, Finland scrapped their entire UBI “experiment” principally due to its cost that totaled $22.7M. Preliminary results indicate there was no significant improvement in employment by participants. Their actual benefits were in terms of “fewer problems” with health, mood, concentration and stress. The Finnish government has no plans to undertake other UBI projects. Ontario, Canada launched a UBI test in April 2017 involving 4,000 low-income people. The program was axed in early 2018 due to the “extraordinary cost for Ontario taxpayers.”

Concerns about such projects’ costs along with uncertain benefits have led critics to characterize UBI as a solution searching for a problem. Harvard professor Laurence Summers stated, “A universal basic income is one of those ideas that the longer you look at it, the less enthusiastic you become.” Because of the problematic nature of UBI and Andrew’s naïve expectation that Congress would pass a national value-added tax along with his UBI program, my Fantasyland Indicator for him is 9.3.

Pete Buttigieg.  Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s campaign has focused on generational change; he is the youngest Dem candidate, and only left-hander. He has endorsed expanding the number of Supreme Court justices may be a progressive crowd-pleaser, but it chiefly resides in Fantasyland. He has offered several ideas: increase the number of permanent Supreme Court justices to 10 from the current 9 that’s been in place since 1869, along with 5 others rotating in who could be seated only by unanimous consent of the first 10. Pete is also considered having appellate court judges serve rotating one-year terms on the court. Franklin D. Roosevelt undertook the last attempted “packing” the Supreme Court; it failed in 1937. Any of the mayor’s changes for the Supreme Court would require passing new Congressional legislation and winning subsequent legal skirmishes. He also believes students shouldn’t have to take on debt to go to college, by substantially increasing aid. He’s in favor of a carbon tax and a single-payer healthcare system modeled on M4A. My Fantasyland Indicator for Pete is 8.6.

Kamala Harris.  Senator Kamala Harris’ positions on some of the increasing number of progressive Dem litmus-test issues like M4A, taxing the wealthy and allowing convicted criminals to vote have changed over time, creating uncertainty about her beliefs. She seems interested in straddling the wide Dem expanse between leftish progressives (that the NYTimes now oddly labels just liberals) and mere moderates. Kamala has yet to master this balance-beam exercise’s difficult poising. She calls herself somewhat puzzlingly a “progressive prosecutor.” My Fantasyland Indicator for Kamala is 8.1.

Beto O’Rourke.  Former Representative Beto O’Rourke’s campaign seems to have stalled. His principled stands on immigration and gun violence are well-reasoned but unfortunately unlikely to result in new policy – e.g., “Hell yes we’re going to take away your AR-15.” If only. He’s in favor of a national cap-and-trade program to reduce emissions. If only, one more time. Like most of his candidate colleagues, he’s taking the high road by favoring the national legalization of marijuana. My Fantasyland Indicator for Beto is 8.5.

Joe Biden.  And last but not least, Joe Biden. His campaign is founded on amending Dem policies to be more relevant for today’s world, not revolutionizing them. As such, he’s the Dems’ elder monarch of moderates. Little fantasy shines on Joe’s policy stars although his verbal meanderings can indeed be fantastic. He’s far more in favor of modifying the ACA, passed when he was Vice President and listening to LPs on his record player, rather than creating a brand-new M4A healthcare system. He seems much more politically-practical than most of the other Dem candidates, which befits his appreciation of the Obama era. Fantasyland and Joe aren’t that chummy.

Will he and his candidacy be wounded as collateral damage from the Dems’ Impeachment Inquiry on #45? Irony abounds. The Inquiry is focused, for the moment, on the president’s conversation with the Ukrainian President. It’s way too early to tell if Joe will survive, but it certainly can’t help to have his and his son’s names repeatedly used in the growing swarm of media stories about potential impeachment. My Fantasyland Indicator for Joe is 5.7.

My Fantasyland Indicators, shown in the chart below, for Joe, Kamala, Beto and Pete, have values lower than Andrew’s, Elizabeth’s or Bernie’s.

    Fantasyland Indicator by Person

    The higher the indicator’s score, the more fantasy-like the person’s rating.

So let’s bid adieu to Fantasyland and hitch our wagon to Frontierland. Disney’s Frontierland recreates the romanticized, wondrous, long-ago pioneer times along America‘s frontier. Never mind the realities of life in the 1800s; when life expectancy was only 40 years, one-half what it is now, and maternal mortality was 35 times greater than it currently is.

Instead, envision cowboys gallantly herding steers to market across the plains or homesteaders straining to grow corn on their 160-acre parcel. The appeal of Frontierland goes back to the good ol’ days when men were … Marion Morrison. Marion had a wondrously alliterative name, but Hollywood VIPs didn’t like it, so they changed this actor’s moniker to John Wayne. Just like they did with Danlielovitch Demsky who became Kirk Douglas and Archibald Alexander Leach who became Cary Grant. Talk about old-time diversity suppression. As Franklin P. Adams aptly stated, nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory.

My Frontierland Indicator accounts for the person’s approach to solving key issues, this time with our historic frontier as his frontispiece. The higher a candidate’s Frontierland Indicator is, the more fond he is of the good old days and the lower I believe is the candidate’s likelihood of passing actual effective, implemented policies in the present-day US, not just in long-ago Frontierland. The indicator’s maximum value is -10.

Donald Trump.  Among the current posse of presidential candidates one stands out as the numero uno denizen of Frontierland, Donald Trump. Every Trumpian acolyte who wears one of his MAGA hat subscribes to his rants to get back to a former, but more “great” era, even if it never ever actually happened. His so-far silent, obsequious Congressional comrades are similarly culpable for #45’s ruinous antics that are founded on an imaginary past.

In this sense, President Trump genuinely lives in Frontierland’s yesteryears. His faint policy record since he was inaugurated has been grim and depressing. Now that the Dems are understandably and singularly focused on their Impeachment Inquiry, I hope they surmount the challenges to convince enough of the public, not only Dem stalwarts, that their quest is both appropriate and can be successful. They’d better remember, and side skirt what happened to the Repubs when they over-reached in their effort to impeach President Clinton two decades ago.

My Frontierland Indicator for #45 is a -9.9; who knows what actions he’ll take next that raise his rating to a maximum 10, or beyond. The possibilities seem horribly endless.

Andrew Johnson.  For comparison’s sake with #45, I’ve also included that of #17, Andrew Johnson, in the Frontierland Indicator chart below. In April, 1865, six weeks after he was elected Vice President, Mr. Johnson ascended to the presidency when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. He presided over the end of the Civil War and favored quick restoration of the 11 seceded Southern states back into the Union. His policies did not provide protection to former slaves. Andrew’s obstinate interactions with the Republican-controlled Congress ended with his impeachment in the House. [Sound eerily familiar?] The Senate acquitted Andrew by a single vote. Based on numerous surveys of US presidential rankings, obstreperous Andrew Johnson’s average ranking is 37th out of the 45 US presidents. His historical ranking places him solidly in the bottom fifth of all presidents. I give Andrew a Frontierland Indicator score of -8.7.

  

    Frontierland Indicator by Person

  The larger the indicator’s score, the more frontier-like the person’s rating.           

So, what will it be a mere 391 days from now in our presidential election, Fantasyland, Frontierland or something else?

If such prospects seem disheartening, here’s a smidgeon of completely non-political news that may provide a smile and some relief. More importantly, this event confirms that despite the obsessions of the inside the DC Beltway crowd, the actual world thankfully still functions.

I’m referring to the just-completed World Stone-Skipping Championship. As reported in The Economist, the contest again happened on Easdale Island, a jaunty 3-hour drive out of Glasgow Scotland, plus a ferry ride. This island is a small protuberance in the Firth of Lorn off the west coast of Scotland with a permanent population of about 60 resilient souls. It seems an unlikely place to hold a world championship, perhaps as much as Doha, but these hardy Scotts think otherwise. [FYI, the average daily high temp on the island in Sept. is 60^oF, a whopping 42^o less than Doha.] On September 29 Easdale Island held its 22nd World Stone Skimming Championships. Contestants skim their slate stones across the surface of a flooded quarry. The winner is the skimmer who achieves the greatest cumulative distance with their 3 throws. 

Peter Szep of Hungary repeated his 2018 victory and threw an impressive 189 meters (620ft) this time around. Wow. Each skim must bounce off the water at least twice. As in other sports, success in stone-skimming requires maintaining good technique under pressure. It’s all in the wrists as they say. Researchers have found that a stone is most likely to skim if it hits the water at an angle of around 20 degrees, if it is spinning and if it travels at more than 2.5 meters a second. It’s both remarkable and gratifying that individuals have actually devoted time researching what optimal slate stone skimming techniques should be. Clearly Peter has this down. So bend your knees, flick your wrist – as shown in the picture – and toss it with focused power to get ready for next year’s world championship on the island. Onward…

Visualization assistance: Cody I. Smith

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[1] $3 trillion is so large a number that it defies understanding. Here’s a more comprehensible way to think about the size of this huge sum, its length. How long is $3T? If one horizontally crams together Ben Franklin $100 bill packs, $3 trillion’s worth of Ben Franklins would be about 1,860 miles long; approximately the distance from Berkeley CA to Ft. Smith, AK. That’s a 26hr drive, motoring along each and every one of those Ben Franklins.

A MICRO MAN WILL SOON BE AT OUR NATION’S HELM

An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a narrow field. ~ Neils Bohr

Donald Trump will become the 45th President of the United States (US) in exactly 30 days, following his unexpected election victory. The Electoral College voted yesterday to make him president and Congress will certify the Electoral College’s vote on Jan. 6. Coming into the presidency, Mr. Trump’s experience is narrowly founded on commercial real estate and reality TV. Unlike Neils Bohr, he would never admit to making any mistakes. His grandiosity-seeking persona has focused on specific, narrow, micro-oriented concerns, usually announced via 140-character Twitter posts.

Political commentators have been spewing too many speculations about how Donald Trump surprisingly won the presidency. Nate Cohn of The New York Times and others have concluded that his victory came from a fortuitous, slight “red-shift” in a few battleground states – Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

He narrowly won each of these states by one point or less of the popular vote. But these slender victories gave him a decisive Electoral College edge. Only with effective, focused and steady effort over the next several years on the part of Democrats will this red-shift be prevented from being a long-term political prospect. This is by no means a sure thing; currently the Democrats are leaderless and far from united. For example, when was the last time you heard that the Sanders-Warren progressive movement was succeeding in the political ground work to place strong candidates on 2018 ballots that can actually win elections?

Interestingly, the red-shift phenomenon has been examined for over 150 years, but not by politicians. Astrophysicists first discussed it in the 19th century. It was a basis for Edwin Hubble’s early 20th century Law that posited other galaxies are receding from Earth, causing a red-shift (Doppler) effect. The Hubble Law supports the dynamic Big Bang model of the universe.

Even though the headline-obsessed Donald Trump likely will cause a number of “bangs” as president, with any luck they won’t compare in the slightest to the Big Bang that Hubble described. Fingers remain completely crossed on this. But let’s now depart from cosmology and take off to the here and now.

Even before he’s president, The Donald (TD) pulled off one momentary bang on Dec. 1 in getting Carrier Corp. to "save" 800 jobs at its Indianapolis air conditioner plant. Nice work. However, despite all the media hoopla that TD created in Indianapolis, the next week United Technologies Corp.’s chief executive (UTC owns Carrier) stated that some of those “saved” jobs would be ultimately lost to automation. In other words, Carrier still plans to cut its workforce, so those 800 saved jobs are a chimera. And what about the other 400 Carrier workers that TD seems to have completely forgotten about who will be soon laid off? Oh well, sorry guys.

Is The Donald ducking his responsibilities to take a comprehensive view of his job as president? So far, as president-elect, it seems so. He is all about tactical, individual, bottom-up “deals,” (micro transactions), rather than a broader, strategic (macro) vision that might unify and preserve America’s greatness. [As I’ve already shown, we are now great, and have been, despite his incessant proclamations to the contrary.] And yes, in recent times certain groups of Americans have not seen much if any economic benefit, as other groups have. This vital issue of economic inequality, that TD’s announced economic policies will not remedy at all, does need to be rectified; but it does not detract from our overall distinction as a nation. There is no nation that can claim seamless distributional equity.

The Donald’s Carrier deal required now-governor Mike Pence to offer a lush $7 million taxpayer-funded bonus to the company. What happens after January 20 when workers beyond Indiana demand TD’s help? Maybe President Trump can create a rotating vice presidency of Republican governors who can bestow multi state crony capitalism outside the Hoosier State on an as-needed basis.

Irony abounds. The US unemployment rate declined to 4.6% in November, the lowest it’s been in over 9 years. This reduction represents a significant success for hundreds of thousands of US workers that the Obama administration has helped in bestowing. In fact, during President Obama’s time in office the economy gained 15 million jobs, which works out to 36,000 jobs per week. Yet TD’s public statements clearly emphasize his disparagement of this advantageous macro situation.

He campaigned with a micro focus on preserving manufacturing jobs, which have steadily declined during the last 63 years, on fending off the purported “war on coal” that has affected the nation’s 80,000 coal-miners and stopping imports. 
Mr. Trump’s allegations about why coal miners now represent only 0.05% of our labor force are, to be generous, misplaced. Sure, environmental policies established by Republicans and Democrats have played a part (and offered important, essential health and longevity benefits to all of us), but the most important factor reducing coal mining jobs has been competitive market forces, specifically the reduction of domestic natural gas prices due to significant improvements in extracting natural gas from the ground (e.g., fracking).

Coal’s share of its key market as a fuel for electric power generation has been cut by 15% during just the past 8 years. Natural gas and non-fossil-fuel technologies (solar, wind, biomass) have gained what coal has lost. No bully-pulpit phone calls or mouth-to-mouth meetings by TD will restore coal’s former markets. Why should they? He continuously accentuates his acumen as a businessman who understands markets and technology, and applauds market forces that he has taken advantage of in commercial real estate. Market forces are present in the energy sector as well.

The improvement in the nation’s overall (macro) employment – now 124 million full-time workers – isn’t his concern; he’s purely focused on micro transactions – industry-specific situations – like Appalachian coal miners or air conditioner builders. Micro matters to him. Perhaps he believes macro is for losers.

If we didn’t know it before, most of us now know that working class wages have stagnated for more than a decade. This upward wage inertia has turned John M. Keynes' famous downward "sticky wages" insight on its head. The wages of less-educated, primarily non-urban workers, among others have been stuck from rising. White working-class people strongly voted for TD and gave him a crushing 39% margin over Clinton. With TD’s beauty-contest cabinet appointments and his suggested economic policies (e.g., not raising the $7.25/hr federal minimum wage) how can wages for working-class laborers be improved? They can’t.

Under the Trump presidency, I expect average real (inflation-adjusted) wage rates will continue to decline or at best stay steady. Inflation is likely to increase if he convinces his congressional buddies to fund his ideas for improving the nation’s infrastructure (an eminently worthwhile, if overdue measure of expansionary fiscal policy), and increase the defense department’s budget (an utterly mistaken, uncalled for scheme). Among other reasons, such sizeable spending, along with Republicans’ incessant desire to cut federal income and remove estate taxes for the richest Americans, will require large amounts of deficit spending. Increased deficit spending will raise interest rates on government bonds. Ten-year Treasury notes’ interest rates have risen 55.7% since Nov. 1.

Right after the Federal Reserve increased the Federal Funds interest rate last week by 0.25%, the US dollar appreciated as expected. The new president’s suggested increases in deficit spending will further strengthen the dollar. With the stronger dollar, US exporters will have a more difficult time selling their goods overseas and imports will become less expensive, something that can threaten a larger trade deficit and lower macroeconomic growth, neither of which is likely to please the new president. Watch for Congressional Republicans to fortify their discussions about reducing the Fed’s much-needed independence.

In his 44 days as president-elect, I’m convinced that TD thinks solely in micro terms, he’s a distinctive deal guy. He is likely to be a pervasive transactional president, unmoored by any unifying vision of meaningful macro objectives. Perhaps learning from the Kardashians (although he’d never give Kim even a milligram of credit), he banks on the broadening power of social media – especially Twitter – to provide pseudo-breadth to his micro moves.

Can micro TD convince us and the world that his narrow, transactional perspective is sufficient to lead our nation? Is this the change that his acolytes voted for? We'll be finding out on a day-by-day basis beginning in 30 days.

WHAT HAPPENED? The demise of Hillary Clinton

Success consists of going from failure to failure without lose of enthusiasm. ~ Winston Churchill

This was not an exciting “election cycle”; there was no hope involved, only accusations and denigrations. We were politically exhausted by Nov. 8, and the turnout data have confirmed this. Voter turnout for all 50 states was 58.0% of eligible voters; in 2012 it was 58.6%; in 2008 it was 62.2%. This means more than 97 million eligible voters did not vote last week.

Too many Democratic voters simply stayed home. California had the 4th lowest state voter turnout of any state, just 51.8%. State turnout rates ranged from 74.0% (Minn.) to a trifling 34.0% (Hawaii). Although Hillary Clinton won the popular vote with a 1% margin, she will garner only 228 Electoral College (EC) electors. Donald Trump will win with 290. Many liberal-progressive Democrats understandably remain distraught and upset. I certainly empathize.

Although Republicans intimidated certain voters, and created deceitful barriers to reduce or eliminate likely Democrat voters from casting ballots, that is not the only reason she lost. More importantly, the Trump voter turnout was unexpectedly much stronger and broader than anticipated. Hillary Clinton’s loss wasn’t merely caused by what the Republicans did. It was also due to what the Democrats didn’t do.

First, the Democrats couldn’t hold together Obama’s 2012 coalition, and didn’t spend any real effort to peel away much of a sliver of white middle-class and lower-middle class voters who Trump focused on.

In my last blog, “Voter Turnout,” I mentioned that Clinton’s grand challenge for this election was to persuade more Hispanics, Blacks, women, millennials and college graduates to actually vote for her than they did for President Obama. Her campaign failed this challenge. Only 12% more women voted for Clinton than Trump; only 18% more millennials voted for her. Other published voter turnout analyses have stated that Trump won 53% of the white women’s vote. At this point, so soon after the actual election, there is a fair amount of conflicting information about the characteristics of voters and who they voted for. These discrepancies probably arise from differences between specific exit polls’ sampling methods and analysis. Nevertheless, the results are woeful.

The efforts Democrats undertook to entice Hispanics, Blacks, millennials and other pro-Democrat voters to vote for Clinton did not raise their turnout. In fact, initial turnout analysis indicates that Clinton’s support margins (the difference between people who voted for her and who voted for Obama in 2012) declined for Black, Hispanic and Asian voters, as well as for men and people who earn less than $50,000 per year.

In past elections, two key demographic categories for the Democrats – Hispanics and millennials - have been difficult to lure into voting booths. Again this time they didn’t vote enough or give her sufficient margins for her to win on Tuesday.

Nationally, only 11% of votes cast on Nov. 8 were by Hispanics, the same turnout as in 2012. No other turnout data are yet available regarding ethnicity/racial voter participation, but when they are I doubt they will show anything that speaks of a successful turn-out-the-vote effort for Clinton.

Second, Clinton’s campaign seemed to have forgotten the importance of the archaic, but elemental Electoral College. In close elections like this one, the EC can provide additional importance for the smaller-population states that Trump won.

She overwhelmingly won urban-dwellers (by a 24% margin), but lost small-city and rural voters (by a 28% margin). Guess what; the states away from America’s coasts with lots of small cities outnumber the fewer states with very large cities.

This is one reason why this election’s state-by-state results’ map resembles a landscape with  blue-tinged boarders (all of the west coast and the northern part of the east coast) and a very wide, red middle, with just 4 blue exceptions (CO, NM, MN and IL). It’s been a long time since the red middle has been as wide. Trump won 30 states, Clinton just 21, including Washington, DC. This landscape became the election victory for Mr. Trump, at Sec. Clinton’s expense.

The electoral bottom line: Clinton couldn’t get enough of her targeted voters in enough states to vote for her to win. Trump’s dark, nefarious, emotion-based appeal to “the forgotten” middle-class won the day, and is now changing the political panorama of the nation. 

VOTER TURNOUT: EVERY POLITICIAN’S CHALLENGE

It’s not the voting that’s democracy; it’s the counting. ~ Tom Stoppard

Breathe a sigh of relief, it’s almost over. There are only two days left before this year’s election; can you count that low?

Seemingly forever, the media have been flooding us with a tsunami of election ads and information, including wayward stories about what young teenage girls’ views are of the election and the candidates. Really? I feel a deep sense of relief that November 8 is almost upon us. Despite feeling this bit of relief from “the election cycle” almost reaching its proverbial high noon, the anxiety accompanying the result more than whelms my passing feelings of reprieve.

And it’s not just me. Therapists across the country have reported a growing number of people seeking assistance from election-induced fatigue and trauma syndrome (EIFTS). I suggest you take this handy, insightful and quick quiz to determine if you’re suffering from EIFTS. Should your quiz score indicate you qualify for EIFTS assistance, don’t forget to thank Wolf Blitzer, Rachel Maddow and Bill O’Reilly, along with The Donald and Hillary, among others.

More seriously, probably the most crucial challenge facing every politician in every election, including this one, is voter turnout. Getting people to actually vote, and vote for you, is of ultimate, prime importance. At this point the candidates and their surrogates still remain busy hoarsely making public speeches. Like Donald Trump’s mystifying decision to speechify in Albuquerque, New Mexico last week, a solidly-blue state this time around. But beneath the lecterns, their campaigns are franticly focused on nudging and cajoling likely voters to the polls. Far more concerning are some nativist Republican Trumpophiles who are erecting deceitful barriers to reduce or eliminate likely Democrat voters from casting ballots. Perhaps we should send them to jail.

It’s been a while since US voters have been so unexcited about casting ballots in a presidential election. What happened to Hope? In 2012’s presidential election just under 219 million people, accounting for 57.5% of eligible voters, cast their ballots, down from 62.3% in 2008. This modest voter participation/turnout rate ranks the US 31st out of the 35 developed democracies comprising the OECD.

The chart below illustrates the participation by voters’ racial/ethnic characteristics in the past 4 presidential elections. As shown, white and black voters participate more by a noteworthy margin over Hispanics and Asians. Despite significant efforts, getting Hispanics and Asians to actually vote has long been a dispiriting quandary. Hopefully the Democrats’ efforts over the past several weeks will be more successful this time.

Since 2000, a maximum of just 49% (in 2008) of Hispanics voted in any presidential election. In contrast, 66% of eligible black voters and 65% of eligible white voters on average participated in the past two presidential elections. Uniquely among the four racial/ethnic groupings shown in the chart, black voters have increased their voter participation consistently since 2000.

Percent of eligible electors who voted in presidential elections, 2000-2012 

Source:  New York Times

The relatively small voter participation rate for Hispanics is a particular challenge for Hillary Clinton, because they represent a growing, core constituency for Democrats.

Another constituency that has been targeted by Sec. Clinton’s campaign is millennials, who like Hispanics have a diminutive record of voting. In two of the media-designated “most important” swing states - North Carolina and Florida – less than one in five millennials voted in this year’s primaries; 15% in Florida, 18% in North Carolina. Hopefully far more millennials will vote rationally on Tuesday.

These disparities in voting participation exist in non-swing states as well. In California, an overwhelmingly blue state, only 17% of eligible Hispanics and Asians voted in the 2014 election. In that year, the California voting electorate was 60% whites and 18% Hispanics, which is far different than the state’s overall demographics. Actual California population demographics are 38% whites and 37.6% Hispanics.

Another important constituency for Sec. Clinton and Democrats has become educated voters. For once the Democrats have an advantage over Republicans. Because the more educated a person is, the more likely she/he will vote, and vote Democratic. According to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS) and the United States Elections Project,  54.9% of all voters nationally in the 2012 election were 60 years or older; just 16.3% were young people aged 18 to 29 years. From CPS data only 17.6% of people with less than a high-school degree voted in the 2012 election and just 29% of high-school graduates voted. In contrast, 59.9% of folks who have an advanced degree turned out to vote in 2012.

Finally there is the gender distinction between voters. In every presidential election since 1980 more women have voted than men. For our last national election in 2012 63.7% of women reported voting versus 59.8% of men. This translates into almost 10 million more women voters than men.

So who are the most reliable voters; voters that need the fewest nudges to get into the voting booth? Simply stated, the most dependable voters are female, older and more educated folks.

The above-cited voter turnout data illustrate why Democrats need larger and more effective get-out-the-voter efforts than Republicans. With the exception of women and college-educated people, Democrats’ target constituencies – people of color, urbanites and young people – don’t vote as reliably as the historically-targeted Republican electorate – white, middle- and upper-middle class suburban folks. Just ask Bernie Sanders.

Nevertheless, the white, non-college educated working-class people who Mr. Trump has apparently captured don’t vote as reliably either. Although it makes no difference for Tuesday’s election, the white working class has noticeably diminished over time. Two demographers have noted that in 1940 82% of Americans 25 and older were whites with no more than a high school education; by 2007, that figure had dwindled to 29%.

The waning prominence of white working-class people is directly linked to the electorate. In 1980 according to exit polls, 63% of the electorate was comprised of voters who were whites without a four-year college education. That had dropped 10 points by 1992, when Bill Clinton won the presidency. That election marked the last time exit polls would find whites without college degrees to be a majority of voters. By the time Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, just 39% of those who cast ballots were whites without college degrees.

For this and other reasons, white working-class men have reason to feel disremembered. That is until The Donald pledged to focus his ethno-nativist attention on them. As we’ve seen during the past year, some white working-class people remain vocal and motivated by ephemeral Trumpian messages.

My advice for those of you who haven’t yet voted is to make absolutely sure you do. Your vote counts, and can make a very real difference. The resilient, postive destiny of this great country depends on every eligible citizen to vote for Hillary Clinton. She is infinitely more qualified, knowledgeable and capable than her opponent. And unlike her opponent, she will keep our republic from heading over a precipice too fraught to imagine. 

BERNIE WHO?

A revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall. ~ Che Guevara 

The Republican and Democratic presidential primaries have finally ended. Whew. So now we’re witnessing the Republicans’ presumptive nominee Donald Trump and the Democrats’ presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton starting to circle each other (near the rope-lines) in the first round of the up-coming election prize fight – only a mere 140 days away. But wait, Bernie (coulda-been-a-contender) Sanders hasn’t yet thrown in his towel and insists he’ll be running for president forever. Really? Meanwhile his most fervent “Bernie or bust” followers had a gathering in Chicago this past weekend to drum up an alternative something, such as finding like-minded candidates to run for office somewhere and sometime. That's all well and good. I’m all for having people with political beliefs organize and seek an enhanced society.

But by not now pledging his support nor endorsing Hillary, Bernie seems myopically oblivious to the dangerous wild elephant now prancing in the political ring – Donald Trump.

Perhaps Bernie wants to continue the high he’s been riding for a while, but the reality of the lows of his actual political performance (based on the number of actual votes his followers managed to provide in California and DC, among other primaries) won’t allow it to continue.

Bernie’s youthful followers have been impressive in their attendance at his rallies, but many of them forgot to actually vote for their leader. Oops. Almost 16 million people voted for Hillary Clinton, 12 million voted for Bernie Sanders. Of the Democratic primary/caucuses held in the United States, he won 22, she won 29. He lost, fair and square.

So what really happened with the much-discussed and pontificated younger voters that Bernie appealed to as a central cohort of his campaign? As I’ll show, the 2016 democratic primary voting patterns for youth participation are not much different from primaries in the past. Younger people simply didn’t vote in sufficient numbers to lift their candidate (this time, Bernie) to victory. It’s a familiar story. So much for the media-hyped “revolution” of Bernie Sanders.

Hillary’s victory was due to many factors, but demography was a key one, just like it was Bernie’s demise. This is illustrated in the table below.

Bernie Sander’s Phantom Revolution (Percent of total voters by age group)

	Voters under 30 years old		40-64 years	45-59 years	65+ years	60+ years
State	2016	2008	2016	2008	2016	2008
Florida	15%	9%	46%	33%	25%	39%
	[64%]
Illinois	17%	15%	46%	32%	22%	23%
	[86%]
North Carolina	18%	14%	49%	34%	20%	26%
	[72%]
New York	18%	15%	45%	33%	19%	30%
	[65%]

Numbers in brackets represent percent of voters under 30 years old who voted for Sanders.Source: USNews.com

This table shows that young voters, here characterized as people under-30 years old based on exit polls, accounted for at most only 18% of all 2016 voters in these 4 states. I did not find age-based primary state voter information except for these states. Nevertheless, they do represent a range of geographic and political characteristics. As you can see, middle-aged and older voters account for far larger proportions of actual voters. Middle-age voters represent between 2.5 and 3 times as many actual voters as young voters. Also illustrated in the table is that despite much media attention to Bernie’s youth “revolution” the percentage of youth voters in 3 of the 4 states didn’t significantly increase in 2016 from 2008. Surprisingly, young voters in Florida, which is usually associated with much older people, almost doubled in 2016.

Sen. Sanders captured very large majorities of youth voters in these states, as shown in the table – from 64% in Florida to an astounding 86% in Illinois. But percent of voters who were young (under 30) who voted for Bernie was very low; ranging from 9.6% in Florida to 14.6% in Illinois because of their low voter participation rates mentioned above. Despite receiving 86% of young voters’ preference in Illinois, he lost the state to Hillary.

It’s always puzzled me why the media, marketers and politicians continuously emphasize the importance of “youth” and seem to neglect older people who have both more resources (aka, money) to spend on stuff and vote far more regularly and reliably. Sure, the vast majority of young people eventually become income-earning adults who exhibit behaviors (like voting) that youth don’t, but as the table shows “middle-age” people substantially out-vote young people.

This important age-based distinction holds even when you normalize by how much of our 2010 population was in each of the 3 age groups shown for 2016 in the table. The ratio of the average share of voters for each of the 3 age-groups in the 4 states’ primaries shown in the table divided by that age group’s share of the US population shows the oldest age group (65+ years old) voted 70% above their population share; the middle-age group (40-64 years old) voted 40% above their share. The under-30 year old group voted only 10% above its population share, which is fine, but hardly noteworthy.

From a media perspective, it comes down to middle-age voters aren’t “revolutionary”; they’re simply once again exercising their constitutional prerogative. Yet when less than one in five young people actually votes, it’s headline worthy.

For Bernie, young people have been very willing to attend rallies with thousands of their cohorts probably as a social event, but not at all interested in actually voting as a political act. In this strange way, perhaps the multitudes of Bernie backers are socialists – with a small “s” – participating solely in an exciting communal social activity believing there was no other obligatory action required (like casting one’s vote on election-day). Go figure.

So why are young people seemingly so reluctant to vote? No one really can explain it, but Russell Dalton (a professor at UC/Irvine) has examined political engagement among various age groups over the past few decades. His assessment concludes that young adults just aren't as engaged as they used to be. Dalton says if politicians want young people to vote, they need to incentivize them. Wow. Conversely, older folks are much more engaged. Dalton portrays this divergence as constructively as possible by referring to millennials’ lack of voting caused by “the long slope of differences by life stage is getting steeper, with less involvement in youth and more involvement in later life.” The long slope of differences by life stage? That makes no sense at all; mostly because the act of voting is neither difficult nor arduous.

So Bernie, you’ve retreated to Burlington and taken a well-deserved rest, perhaps even hiked in the beautiful Green Mountains. Now you need to formally quit your campaign and say good bye to your Secret Service guardians. Finally and most importantly, you need to start actively and unqualifiedly assisting Hillary to defeat The Donald. If you wisely give her campaign the resources she deserves, you’ll get at least one more spotlight’s worth of attention and thanks. If you don’t, it will be “Bernie who?” Oh, he’s the old man who decided not to help when the Democrats needed it.

If you don’t, you will have failed to make Che Guevara’s apple really fall and the 85% of American citizens who are older than 30 will wonder and blame you for why you haven’t taken any action to defeat Donald J. Trump, the insidious threat to our precious democracy. Do the right thing Bernie, and stay relevant. 

July 12, 2016 Addendum, Bernie's endorsement.

Why did this take soooo long? Today, Bernie finally endorsed Hillary.

I’d say it’s taken this long because, to no one's surprise, Bernie’s played-hard-to-get with Hillary. And her weakness as a candidate probably augmented the importance of his endorsement. Her difficulties remain the continued challenge of “explaining” her disastrous email server issue that won’t go away even on Nov 9 when she’s hopefully been elected president.

Her negotiations with Bernie during the past month or so to get his endorsement only really matters to inside-the-beltway Democratic potentates and princesses (P&Ps); and only for the next 16 days, until the Dems’ convention ends.

No other folks except these P&Ps give a damn about what’s in the Dems’ (or the Repubs’) platform. Furthermore, as this blog showed, his core supporters include young “idealistic” people who haven’t ever pulled their voting weight in any national election. It’s not likely that these people, on the margin, are worth that much effort to harvest for Hillary. If I were Hillary, I'd put Bernie solely in charge of this task. 

No one knows how many Bernie backers will vote for Hillary. You get wildly different answers, depending on which poll you cite. On the one hand, “Recent polls show that only a small fraction of them would support her...” But another poll says that “The vast, vast majority of those who supported Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary will support Hillary Clinton in the general election.” Go figure.

In fact, her leftward turn to induce the Bernie or Busters’ reconciliation and votes makes me concerned about her judgement. His most fervent backers seem so “principled” that they feel “betrayed” by Bernie’s endorsement as well as Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s public endorsement of Hillary. These Bernie backers are barely tangentially-related with the real world of politics and political progress. Their disdain for actually casting votes speaks for itself.

As for the fantasy idea that Hillary should offer Bernie a place on the Democrats ticket as vice president, OMG. According to poll fielded in May, “You're going to hear a lot in the days ahead about possible vice presidential candidates, but when it gets right down to it, voters don't place a lot of importance on the person in the number two slot. Most say a presidential candidate's running mate is somewhat important, but just a third of voters rate the vice presidential nominee as Very Important to how they will vote in the upcoming presidential election. The sentiment is generally the same among both Democrats and Republicans.”

Bernie is a failed candidate. His campaign was interesting, provocative and worthy. Now, like all losers in the presidential primary process, he’s mostly forgotten but not yet gone. He’s a loner with a germane but narrow message that appealed to a small part of the electorate that (as my blog demonstrated) doesn’t vote much.

Despite the media’s proclamations, Bernie won’t be much remembered in 4 months, let alone a year from now. His “revolution” wasn’t. Perhaps his endorsement will provide some lift to Democratic pols, but party “unity” seems a much over-sold virtue as far as actual American voters are concerned. Get on with it Hillary, keep campaigning hard and pick a VP who’s not a Senator from a state with a Republican governor (like Elizabeth Warren), who would be replaced by a Republican.